Cabrillo Music Theatre's 'Cats' will leave feline fanciers meowing for more

The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, based on “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” by poet T.S. Eliot, is being performed by Cabrillo Music Theatre through Sunday at Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. Performances are at 8 tonight, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $28-$74, available in person at the box office or through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or http://www.ticketmaster.com. Cabrillo’s Web site is http://www.cabrillomusictheatre.com.

Arts writer

Catnip to fans of felines, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” seems to have at least nine lives. With a 1981 Olivier Award in its London home base and multiple Tony Awards after its 1983 Broadway debut, “Cats” translates readily (it’s been staged in 20 countries and at least 10 languages) to any audience.

There are gee-whiz technical twinkles and blasts, an amusing and mysterious junkyard set, dancers who can slink and sniff like cats you’ve known, and room for performers who can sing, dance and act. The show has a mischievously upbeat score, with an occasional whiff of sentimentality in the mix, plus one song with an afterlife, “Memory.” While Lloyd Webber was inspired by poet T.S. Eliot’s whimsical “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” “Memory” is actually fashioned from other Eliot poems, with an assist from original director Trevor Nunn.

Cabrillo Music Theatre’s production, which runs through Sunday, is directed and choreographed by Dana Solimando, who had a stint as Rumpleteazer when “Cats” was on Broadway. She brings to the show a vivid sense of the dance idiom. Her cats purr and primp with the best of them in distinctive movements that even the cat-resisters can’t fail to recognize as typical of the species, and very funny to boot.

One cast member, Will North, gives a trifecta of performances. He plays Bustopher Jones, a distinguished 25-pounder of whom it’s said, “No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers”; Gus the waning Theatre Cat; and Growltiger, the ferocious fighter. North nails the characterizations and the vocals.

The other two Actors Equity members in the large cast, Melissa Lyons and Jo Patrick, earn their keep, too. Lyons is the faded Grizabella, the Glamour Cat, who is seeking through her long-shunned tribe of Jellicle cats to become the one chosen for rebirth in a journey to the “Heavyside Layer.” She does justice to the prize song, “Memory.” Patrick is the troublemaker Mistoffelees, who shakes things up whenever he can.

The singing and dancing talent is spread throughout the cast, with standouts like Michael Hunter as Rum Tum Tugger, a prankster who can rock ’n’ roll; Angela Jean as Victoria, the white cat with the amazing extension and balance; and Jimmer Bolden, whose soaring voice gives Old Deuteronomy (“He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme”) the presence and authority to choose the cat blessed for reincarnation in another place.

Despite the almost nonstop dance, “Cats” plays a bit more like an opera than a musical in the sense that there is no spoken dialogue and portions of the clever lyrics are lost to amplification. There is even a brief and well-sung spoof of opera in the middle of one of the musical collages. The plot is minimal, and sometimes hard to find or follow, but the energy and skills of the cast are palpable. Ably keeping it all together is music director and conductor Ilana Eden, known locally for her work with the former Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera and more recently for her appearance in the same post for Cabrillo’s “Ragtime.”

Eliot’s take on the feline of the species is simply stated: “A CAT IS NOT A DOG.” In fact, he surmises, “cats are very much like you.”